There's A Possibility
by rese
Summary: If Jo fell instead of Amy and another man helped pull her out.


_A/N: This came gushing out of me tonight after reading some amazing fic for challenge 40 over at then_theres_us on lj. If you love Doctor Who and Rose like I surely do, do yourself a favour and watch that comm._

_All italics belong to Lykke Li from 'Possibility'._

…

_There's a possibility._

She's falling, always falling, slow. The ice has cracked.

Laurie's face is frozen, twelve steps from her. He will not make it. Never make it in this frozen time on frozen ice. Time, time means nothing at the end of everything and it is the only thing that matters, frozen.

She is falling and time is all that can save her.

_There's a possibility._

She wants to be wrong. So wrong. Time is never right or wrong. It has no morals, it has no opinions, it does not discriminate and this once, just once she really wants time to break the rules.

There are rules in this, to this, in everything. Time is no exception and it makes no exceptions. The air has rushed from her lungs, filling the air suspended around her. Trapping her, leaving her a vacuum in this meaningless.

Yet there is meaning in this because there is an end. The end is always coming, it is coming as she is falling. She is falling and time cannot freeze forever. She cannot fall forever.

There is an end.

_All that I had is all I'm gon' get._

Time does not end though it stills. She can recall everything, every second of her life. Some of it is important; a lot of it is just living, the day-to-day, the moments in between. When she ties her shoes. The scrape of the road against her cheek when she fell. Feeling cold without Beth beside her in the bed.

Important things like meeting Laurie. Knowing him in the most unextraodinary way. Talking cricket, patting cats, blancmange, reading books. Important things like hitting her sister, red in the face, madness burning through her veins as her book turns to ash. Important things like her father.

When time moves on, when she is no longer falling but fallen what will become of her father? She will never be able to take his hand, throw her arms around him.

Her mother will go on with her sisters. She has been everything, the anchor in her world, the guide, the north star, she has clung to her mother. Will she cry with her daughters or hold them and swallow the tears?

She realises she can change nothing in the past. Everything that has happened is all that will happen and nothing that happens when time moves again will change that. She won't be able to find the smile she loves so much on her dearest friend's face.

She won't ever kiss Amy again.

Everything that has happened is all that will happen.

_There's a possibility. There's a possibility._

In this time there is a chance to see everything like she has never seen it before. The ice, the deep crack in its thin shelf is so dark, so blue and fragile. A split in the surface. The water is thick and deeper yet. It swells, swollen under the ice, bursting to come free, shoot through the crack, spread, reach, greedily swallow every inch and space it has been restrained from all winter.

It will swallow her.

The air that holds her now, stings her face. It's cold, the wind rushing off the ice. Her skates pierce nothing beneath her, the edge kisses the surface of the water. Time presses them together in infinity. Waiting, waiting.

The trees are dark behind Laurie, lining the background, strong, tall, forever. She will never run through them again, look up through the pine leaves to see the sky, blue. Blue like her father's eyes. Blue like Beth's ribbon. She will never run again.

_All I gon' get is gon' be yours then._

Everything has been done. Her legs will carry her no more except straight down to the icy depth that waits to catch her in its embrace. Chilling. That is forever.

She will only be remembered. Exist forever in their pasts, her family, her Teddy. His arm will reach for her as it does now for an eternity. He will reach and reach and never reach her in time. Time is as unbreakable as it is lasting.

And it lasts.

She is frozen and it holds her, holds her for him.

Laurie is waiting to reach her.

He never will.

_All I gon' get is gon' be yours still._

It will be all for him. The end, the past, forever, her eternity and his, stretching before her. He stretches for her and time stretches with them but there is always an end. There will be an end as long as there are rules.

The end will be waiting as he waits to catch her, the water waits to catch her as time waits to catch her and let her go. She will sink, speed will be irrelevant, time will control everything and fate it seems has sealed her in its choking hold.

She wishes he could hold her.

She wishes it because he wishes it too.

_So tell me when you hear my heart stop._

He will be the one to pull her body out. When time moves as it will she will be caught and drowned and he will be the one to pull her out. It won't matter by then, but he will stretch and reach and pull her into the sun again.

She will be blue, like the sky, lying beneath it as he presses his hot mouth to hers. His hands will shake, wet and cold like the water that gripped her. Smothering her with air she will not be able to take. She won't want it or deny it. She simply won't be able to.

She will be dead and he will be kneeling over her, his hands shivering against her sodden clothes. Waiting for her to take his breath. Waiting for her to blink. Waiting for her to live.

_You're the only one that knows_.

No one will help him. No one can. They are alone and she was mad and she hurt and hurt them all with her anger and he raced to keep her happy. He cannot race to keep her living.

He is alone. He will be alone and she will leave him and it will hurt.

The ice, the water will cut through her like knives and take her from him. She will leave him and it will hurt. He alone stands on the ice, stretched for her.

Waiting.

Frozen.

_Tell me when you hear my silence. _

He will whisper when he moves, when time releases him and she falls. Her name is on his lips and it pulls at her heart before it is even said. She can read it on his face, beneath his crossed brow, dark with worry, dark with realisation, desperation and complete helplessness.

He might scream, she doesn't know. Time will tell when time lets her fall.

Time will let him try.

Time will make him fail.

_There's a possibility I wouldn't know._

In the end, she won't know. Time is letting her wait, as it waits, as he waits. Laurie will tell her, she won't know. The water will move beneath them, under the ice, under her feet, in her clothes, down her cheeks.

The water will know, will hear his words, her silence. It will take what time gives it, it will be what happens, what happened and it won't change anything except her life.

It will end it because it is the end. Because the ice has cracked. Time is giving her the time to know it. The time she hasn't got and the time Laurie wants.

In the end, she won't know and it won't matter.

_So tell me when my sigh's over._

In time, there is possibility. In time there are rules, unbendable, unbreakable, unending. In time there is strangeness and mystery but there is knowing and understanding and yet there, in time, when everything is frozen and she is falling there comes blue wood.

A blue box, taller than Laurie, as strong and sturdy as the trees that line the pond. It hums and whirrs with strangeness she's never heard, fading in and out until it stops fading and becomes reality, settling in the snow on the bank. Time is holding her and yet she is frozen in shock, surprise, not for what will happen but for what is happening.

She is falling and something else has happened.

Then the end happens and she cannot scream. She is falling, falls and the water passes her skates, reaches through her legs and drags her under, swallows her whole, swallows her scream. Laurie's face, the blue box, the water, it's all she can do to think and stop her brain from freezing. Her mind is caught.

Her mind is still in time.

Two pairs of hands grab her arms as she sinks further, the darkness creeping around her feet, urging her to continue what time has laid out for her. Four hands pull her anyway, pull her from the water.

"JO!"

The first thing she knows is time has not stopped. Time has forgotten itself, or she has forgotten it. Possibilities have played out before her, happened for her, happen to her and now she is lying on the ice, the crack an arm's length away.

She is choking.

Someone pushes her on her side and she feels sick, so sick as water rushes up through her, spilling from her mouth, cold and hot and sick, so sick. She starts to shake, every inch of her springing to life as the wind hits her face and her clothes cling to her.

"There you go," a stranger says behind her but she is looking into Laurie's face and seeing everything possibilities never showed her before. Time has no meaning when she sees his smile, so happy, tears in his eyes, cheeks stretched and aching with happiness.

There is so much happiness.

_You're the reason why I'm closed._

Laurie looks away first, over her, behind her and she twists to see two faces looking down at her in concern. A man kneels beside her, shirt sleeves rolled up, wet to his shoulders, bracers the wrong colour. Behind him is a woman, her hands on her knees, red hair flaring in the sun as her beautiful eyes switch between them all.

"You alright?" she asks and Jo nods, recognising the woman's accent. She's wearing tights but everything else looks completely wrong. The man sighs in relief and rests backwards, smiling down at her.

She knows this face, knows it like she knows possibilities, knew that time had waited, she had waited, Laurie waited. Everything had been frozen until this man came and she looks over to the blue wooden box behind them on the bank.

Time had waited.

"Thank you," she whispers, her throat so raw with ice and aching. With waiting.

She knew what was to come and what has happened, what is happening is only because of this man. His hair flops into his eyes and he runs a hand through it, looking up to the girl.

"All in a day's work."

"Who are you?" Laurie asks from her side and she wants to know too. The man smiles easily, thrusting a hand out as the girl straightens, crossing her arms.

"I'm the Doctor, this is Amy Pond."

She wants to smile as Laurie takes the offered hand and the girl grins down at them on the ice.

"Doctor," Amy Pond says, smiling through her impatience. "Don't we have to – you know…"

"Oh yes! Right!" The man jumps to his feet, dusting off his trousers though they are damp, not dusty.

"Best be off, more people to save, planets to see. You know how it is," he says, adding the last part when he looks down at her. His eyes are old, so much older than anything she has ever seen but he is smiling and she feels like everything will be alright. She can breathe again and the air slips through her, in and out as they walk into the blue box.

She blinks fiercely, her head still against the ice. She watches the box whirr and hum and reality becomes fading and time makes no more sense for her than it did before she tied her skates on. She watches the spot now empty on the snowy bank.

Pristine, she thinks, no longer waiting to breathe, to blink, to shiver.

_Tell me when you hear me fallin'._

Laurie's hand, she realises is wrapped around hers. She turns back to him, seeing the same confusion on his face. She squeezes his hand.

"Thank you."

He looks down at her then, a smile falling onto his face, sadness in his eyes for a second.

"I thought –" he can't finish the sentence without choking and she squeezes his hand again. She knows what he thought, she's thought it herself. His head touches his chest and he pulls her hand to his lips, his breath hot against her skin. She doesn't want to let him go either.

"Teddy, help me up."

He puts his arms around her and sits her up in front of him, crushing her into a hug before she can move to stand. Her small hands touch his back and her head sinks into his shoulder. She is cold but she can breathe and he feels so warm, so alive.

He doesn't wait anymore. He kisses her.

Time, it's time and time has waited for her, frozen her so that she would know. Time has realised and made her realise what this is, what everything has waited for her. What has happened to make this happen, for him to happen for her. He has waited for this, she can feel it as her hands grip his jumper.

His lips are soft and warm. He kisses her, lips pressed into hers, so soft and needy, like air, filling her lungs, making her head swim. She is drowning, time has held her to drown but it is in his arms.

Everything has happened to be in his arms. She is with him. She will be with him. Always. She will be remembered by her family, by him and he will whisper, tell her, press his hot mouth to hers. His hands shake.

Her eyes open slowly and he kisses her cheek, sealing her, sealing this. He holds her to him again and she looks over his shoulder and sees Amy. Her sister holds her skates in one hand, blonde hair loose as she stares at them from under the trees.

She pulls back and looks behind her but there is no blue box. It is like nothing has happened but she has fallen in and Laurie has saved her. There is only one Amy and she waits, staring. There's a possibility there was no man, no box, no red hair, no frozen time.

_There's a possibility it wouldn't show._


End file.
